Bad Cargo: Terminus

[Vaudin Miir]

Terminus system.

The Terminus system had recently joined the Coalition and it had been a long courtship to get them on board. The veritable smorgasbord of hyperlanes that converged on the backwater world was enough to make any spacer's mouth water and steering yoke shake with possibilities. It was a hub of trade in a part of the galaxy that was as far from the "civilized" nonsense of the core as you could get.

Everything imaginable passed through Terminus, even imports from companion galaxies. That was usually good but every so often. Something you don't want in port finds a way through. This was one of those times.

The alert came across broad wave transmissions. Panic was dug deep in the voice of the local security commander's voice as he called out to Coalition members in the area.

"This is commander Trog to Coalition forces. Please respond. A shipping crate carrying a live monster bound for some rich Core world collector's menagerie has broken open and the beast disappeared into the city. Twenty dead already, and more numbers keep coming in of injured. The creature is large 2 meters at least, vaguely reptilian and from reports highly resistant to energy weapons. Send help...please."

The transmission was only an hour old when it hit the first relay and began bouncing around ORC space.

((OOC: This is a monster hunt. The monster is Asexual and can produce more of it's kind with enough food and a dark wet place to start it's brood. I will be soft DMing the monster itself and answering any questions you may have. Get the beasties and earn yourselves a prize, treasure hunt style.))

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The signal came in strong to Tyric's comm. For the moment, he was on Terminus itself, though not near where the beast was located. He had taken out a room and was meditating when the comm station began beeping and flashing a light. Priority traffic that should be listened to immediately. One eye cracked opened from where he sat in a meditative position reminiscent of a lotus, and he rose and walked over to the station, picking up his tunic like shirt as he keyed open and read the message.

Before the screen had closed the message, the tunic was on and he was reaching for his outer robe laying next to the plates of his light armor. Each piece fitted and formed to his body as he slid them on in a specific order, the helmet last with a hiss. The outer robe, golden in color with sun motifs at the shoulder clasp, was wrapped around the armor. To finish, he picked up a giant club like polearm he favored, after sliding a sword to his hip. While he preferred his fists, this thing sounded like it needed the full gamut.

Visored face suddenly lit up with an active HUD as he sent a reply on open channels of his response, and to meet at the city center for a base-op.

[member="Vaudin Miir"]

 

[Jada Raxis]

[member="Vaudin Miir"] [member="Tyric"]

"What in the Feth. Over."

She leaned back in her seat, aboard the SS Quantum Runner. She was just finished doing her preflight checklists, but the message came in. The Hyperlanes would have to wait.

She powered down the main drives with a flick of her thumb and hit the switches thereafter in sequence. Her space suit probably wouldn't do for this, but she still had options. She pulled her black duster over, with the patches, Raxis and SS Quantum Runner stitched on. There was a few others on the jacket, random motifs and logos of crews and bars she'd run with or visited.

Then she pulled a Combat harness on, letting her drone perch on the back. Last the Shock gloves, and the twin Gauntlets that housed her energy shields.

"Let's see what the hell is going on this time."

As she exited the Cutter, she sent a small message to Tyric.

"You reading this dude?"

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Flash. Beep. Another message and Tyric nodded. His system was outdated by years, but it served him well enough. As he swung his leg over a rented speeder bike, he carefully started the engine, then gunned the thing down mostly deserted but once busy streets. Zipping and zagging, his mind fell into a dual thought trance, focusing on the Force and sending a reply as the device gunned back and forth, win whipping his armor tabbards, visor flickering to keep appropriately for the dark-bright-dark spots one always hit driving down a major city road.

"I read it. Approaching center, last good reports mark one there. We'll want a strategy before we descend to follow it into the tube tunnels in the subsurface. It apparently favors mass-transit systems for ease of hunting."

[member="Jada Raxis"] | [member="Vaudin Miir"]

 

[Vaudin Miir]

The port officials had gathered the cargo pilots, the ones still alive, and grilled them for everything they could. The creature was extragalatic, though the pilots didn't know from where exactly. They had done a deep space transfer of the container with a bulk freighter a few weeks ago and were well paid not to ask too many questions. Their paperwork was in order and the proper fees had been paid but point of origin had been somehow left blank. The few things they knew of the creature however were written down and would be sent to personnel searching at the earliest convenience.

The creature was apparently almost all black and preferred warm wet environments such as underground sewers, transit tunnels and caves. It's claws could tear durasteel and it had a long barbed tail. The creature was described as asexual on the documentation and the fear was that the apex predator would be able to reproduce soon with the amount of food available to it. The situation was clearly time sensitive. One hungry predator was bad enough but two would be truly dangerous and if it bred multiple at one time, it could be catastrophic.

Energy weapons were nearly useless on the creature's thick reptilian scales but other weapons would be more effective. As they sent the new information the city security officers got word that 4 more people had turned up dead. Bodies half eaten and left on the street. The security chief ordered the city be put on lockdown, people rushed to their homes and locked the doors. it was be a ghost town soon, but people would also have few places to go if the creature found it's way into a residential building. The hunters would have to act fast. There was no telling how many creatures there would be soon if they didn't.

[member="Jada Raxis"] @Tyric